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JANUARY TEST DRIVE MEME
You awaken to godawful static overlaying a female voice that's too monotone to be anything but a recording. The static makes it difficult to understand the warning, but it's clearly a warning if your surroundings tell you anything...
You're buckled into a sturdy seat bolted to the wall behind you. Around you, there are dozens of others like you, some awake and others still unconscious, but it seems most of the seats lining the walls are occupied. The lights are dim, likely auxiliary lighting, leaving you mostly in the dark. You smell smoke and hear the sizzling crackle of electrical systems popping and shorting out. Some of the seats were jarred off the wall, leaving the occupants either wounded or dead. Count yourself lucky all you have is a headache and various aches accounted to whiplash.
You appear to be in a drop ship or an escape vessel of some form but the pilot is dead and the hull bears a massive gash where it buckled under the impact and sheered off. Through the door-sized opening, you can see vegetation. The air that wafts in is heavy with a humid heat, but it's obviously breathable.
Once you make your way outside, you'll see greenery: Trees, grass, and shrubs tangled with vines that grow wildly and suffocate the trees they climb. In the distance, behind the ship, you can make out a sandy desert that seems to stretch on endlessly. Forward through the trees, however, you may see a crumbling wall, but more importantly, you'll see signs of civilisation. Buildings and other structures seem contained within those decrepit walls. Maybe the natives can fill you in on what's going on, because the last thing you remember isn't being in an escape shuttle. As a matter of fact, you don't remember much about your arrival or where you are. But it's going to be a bit of a hike, better get moving. Though you might want to grab the backpack of supplies under your seat before you go.
With that, the power dies, leaving the drop ship in the dark, crackling and groaning as the hull cools from its catastrophic re-entry.
Fiora | Xenoblade Chronicles
[The last thing Fiora remembers is Shulk's sleeping face as she stood over his hospital bed, trying to talk him into waking up from his coma. Perhaps she had wandered out of the room afterwards, perhaps she'd found a quiet place to rest and managed to doze off to sleep. That would especially explain the dream-like situation she's in now. But it's Shulk's face that omes to mind as she's looking around the inside of this busted ship and the half-dead people around her. Wherever she is, she shouldn't be here; she needs to get back to Shulk. There's still too much to do.
Freeing herself from her - seat? bindings? she's too dazed to tell - is easy enough. She clasps her robotic fingers around the belts keeping her strapped in and rips them away from the seat with little effort. Her heavy feet hit the ground a second later. Now she can see all the way down the middle lane between the seats - dozens of people, some clearly dead and others as uninjured as she is, and a huge gash in the hull of whatever ship this is.]
Are you alright?
[She asks the person who was seated next to her, but a few seconds later she realizes they're... gone. Sobered, she nevertheless moves to the next person, and the one after, looking for anyone she can help, anyone who's become stuck in their seat or can't get out on their own.]
Hey... hey! Can you hear me? Are you alright?
( 2. outside )
[Whatever's going on here, it's clearly intentional on the part of whoever strapped them into that ship. Fiora stands over the pile of backpacks she scavenged from the ship, one of them being her own and the others belonging to those who passed away as a result of a crash. Or apparent crash - it certainly looks like that's what happened, but nobody remembers any of it.
Water, rope, pills of some kind, a number of devices she doesn't recognize, a blanket... and food, although there wasn't a need to include food in her backpack. She'd have gladly taken more water instead. For a few minutes, she wonders if she can barter away her food for water, but most if not all of the people here are going to need water as much as she will.
With a deep sigh, she tries to keep herself on-task instead of dwelling on this frustratingly implausible and unexplained predicament. Grabbing one of the extra backpacks, she trudges her half-metal body up to the nearest person.]
Excuse me. There are some extra supplies here if you'd care for some. [she pauses. oh, what the heck, she'll try anyway.] ...I've got extra food, too, if you're willing to trade some of your water.